Mise-En-Scene(AG)

Mise-En-Scene

Mise-En-Scene is a french term which  is the arrangement of everything in the frame. Actors, lighting, props, costume is all mise-en-scene.

Costumes and Make-up: Using make-up and costumes makes the character feel like an ordinary day to day person and more realistic.Make up is used in films to be applied to an actors face to achieve a certain look. It is designed to make them look their best although the makeup is very subtle. Sometimes they use makeup to make specific features stand out. Makeup can also be used to show wounds or transform people into things. Costumes are what is seen on the characters, clothing, accersories and hairstyles. They usually come across as conveying a sense of what the character may be like. In relation to thriller films makeup could be used to show the character is scared and in tears by smudging the eye makeup. Costumes can portray good and evil characters aswell. Mostly in thriller films the 'good' character would be dressed in white to show innocence whereas the 'bad' character would be seen in black symbolising death and mysterious.

Setting and Props: Settings are places where the scene is set. These are locations which can be set inside or outside. With a thriller a typical convention would be an abandoned house, forests or other dark places. Props are used by actors in the film, some props can explain about the character, narrative or genre depending on what it is. Thriller films tend to use mirrors, knives etc to build tension. 

Lighting and colour: Lighting and colour have a big effect on films. You could guess which genre the film is by the lighting. With a romantic film the lighting would be high key to show the romance and love, whereas with a thriller it would be low key lighting to show the mysteriousness of it. With colour we can relate it with emotions and thoughts, red would associate with love in romance films but in thrillers it would represent blood. Black would associate with death and darkness which would also relate back to conventions of a thriller.

Facial Expressions: Facial expressions are a motion or position someone may do to show off their emotion. They are known as nonverbal communication which the audience can tell which emotion the character is feeling without being physically told. This can shown and made clear through physical, mental and emotional actions which will show the actors characteristics. If a character is scared they will have wide watery eyes, with there teeth maybe chattering a bit and there hands shaking closely together. 

Positions: Positioning is where the characters are placed within the frame which is important in most scenes and can make you tell a lot about a character. In some points you can tell who is more powerful in the film by the way they have been positioned. For example in a murder seen the antagonist will usually be more dominant in the frame than the victim is.